God is not joking around.

I feel very shell-shocked about the evening we just had. I hope that in my excitement my grammar and spelling are still legible.

I was told that a dear friend was praying specifically that we would have a breakthrough tonight, and I really feel like God answered her prayer. Tonight Andi Moore came with me, and she was so great. We walked in and there were already a few customers talking to the bouncers, so we briefly said hi and gave the bouncers the cookies I made before we went to the girls. I did get a chance to talk to the bouncer whose wife I might be able to meet with, and he let me know when a good time to meet with her would be and said she would be interested in meeting up, so I'm going to email her tomorrow.

We met 2 new girls, "J" and "L". This is L's first time working in the club, but she has family that work there too, so I fear it will be very difficult for her to leave once she gets sucked in. But prayer is more powerful than we know. Both J and L were very friendly and we connected on kids, pets, etc. The gifts this month were autumn stenciled pails that you put tealight candles in, which we filled with tissue paper, a cookie, some flowers and one of the Cherished cards that had a verse about love on it. Everyone liked the gifts. We then went to talk to "H" and "A", who were a little stand-offish last month, and they were very friendly and talkative. They seem guarded though, as if they like or don't mind the job. But they were friendly, and that was progress, especially for A.

We then headed to the dressing room and I ran into a girl, "S", who I met almost 2 years ago. We exchanged phone numbers, but then hers was disconnected and I never heard from her again. She immediately remembered me and asked for my phone number. She said she doesn't have any friends and she'd like to hang out. She's going through custody issues with her children, so I told her we'd be praying for the whole situation. Please pray that the system does what's right for the kids. I invited her to church and she seemed pretty receptive, and really wants to hang out, which is great. "M" was on the phone in an argument with someone while I was talking to "S", and as we got ready to leave, I went up to her and asked if she was ok. She said she has had better nights, and I told her I could see that. :-) I told her I would be praying for her, and she said thank you. Then I squeezed her arm and told her I loved her, and she said, "I know." I cannot express to you what that means to me. She told me she loved me too and then we headed out. Even more than her saying she loves me is knowing that she really GETS that I love her, and hopefully, that God loves her.

So we're heading out and I tap on the dj's door as we walk by his booth to say hi/bye. He was introducing a girl on the stage, but motioned for us to stop. Then he proceeded to tell me about a serious situation with a girl I know pretty well, who has been in the hospital for a week. She was in a medically induced coma and is supposedly being released soon. He wanted to give me her contact information as soon as he could get it, so "someone could maybe get through to her and get her out of this life". Wow. I was heartbroken to hear about her situation, as she's been working really hard to put her life back together - the details are hazy about whether she was in the hospital due to her own decisions, or if it was unintentional. The dj has all my contact info and said he would try to get me in touch with her before she ended back up in the club "because by then, it's too late" - his words. Please, please pray that I can get in touch with her and that God uses this to be the rock bottom she may need to completely change her life.

I can't even think straight, because I'm still processing this night. There is so much to pray for and hope for, but so much brokenness. Every visit makes me love them more.

Ridiculous Weekend

Not a fan of the weekend we just had. Not. A. Fan. Somehow our family caught easily the nastiest stomach bug I've ever had in my life. First Josiah started vomiting Thursday night and that lasted all night until Friday morning around 4:30 am.

*Random note: I just had to turn off my music, because it's hard to relive a miserable weekend when you're listening to Marky Mark sing Good Vibrations.

Anyway, so Josiah got better and then at 7 am Saturday I started getting sick. I seriously felt ill everytime I straightened up, and just curled in a ball on the couch and let Josiah watch Scooby-Doo. But God took care of me, and I stopped getting sick around 12. After that it was just a matter of feeling extremely achy and exhausted. In the midst of this, Stella contracted Hand, Foot and Mouth which is basically a high fever and lots of painful blisters and you can't do a thing for them besides give them tylenol. My heart just broke for her, she cried and cried and all I could do was rock her. I was so thankful that my round of sickness was a little quicker so I could take care of her. Then TJ came home from work Saturday morning because he'd gotten sick. He probably took the longest to get better, but by late Sunday afternoon he was ready to eat again. Terri (my wonderful mother-in-law) actually drove out here to take care of us on Saturday night, and it was such a huge blessing. She went and picked up sick food (i.e. the BRAT diet and 7Up) and medicine and took care of Josiah, who was running around being crazy, as he felt fine.

This morning I took Stella to the doctor - she was supposed to be getting her 4 month vaccinations, but we put it off due to her fever. Dr. Zabo said she looks great, other than the HFMD. But Stella slept well last night and seems to be feeling a little better. It's so terrible when you can't do a thing for them and they just cry and want you to fix it.

But life is better now. Stella's on the mend, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought supplies for my latest project (3 tooth fairy pillows for some sweet girls) and can clean my house free of sickness. Time to turn on the Marky Mark.

Jack Johnson - Fortunate Fool

I love listening to chill music while cooking and cleaning my kitchen. So now I'm hanging out in the living room surfing pinterest while Jack plays in the background. Not so bad.

Lonely Is The Night... is an awesome song.

I just want to let you know that my husband informed me at 7:00 am this morning that we were painting Josiah's room. Now. I quickly informed him right back that there was no way I was painting anything without having had any coffee. Pshh. Who did he think he was talking to? I am a zombie before I have coffee. But it is now 12:16, and his room is completely done, with the exception of some edging, which I will let TJ do when he wakes up from his nap. He has the day off today, which is AMAZING. Love it. In anticipation of his long weekend with the family, we hit up Lowe's on Saturday morning and bought paint for both of the kids rooms. We did Stella's on Saturday. I bought a pale pink, but since we don't believe in priming, it came out a little more pink than I hoped for. However, I still like it, and when we paint the angled walls in her room white, it will look even better. Everytime I see it, all I can think is that her room is covered in her "two signature colors: blush and bashful". (Although her room is one color of pink - it still works with the quote).

Yesterday at church was crazy. Worship at our church has just been getting more and more Holy Spirit filled. It was a little bit of a new experience at first, and now it's just more and more amazing every week. Yesterday was just kind of indescribable. People from church are still talking about it today on facebook - and it was in both services. It just felt like that verse about God inhabiting the praises of his people. It's so exciting to be part of whatever is happening at our church and in our city. I'm not sure what God is up to, but I'm so excited. I kind of wish we could have a worship session at church every night. I can relate to the church in Acts gathering to worship everyday when the Holy Spirit was going crazy with them. I wish we could - or were!

Random thoughts:

• I really like my (2nd) cousin Jason. And his girlfriend Katie. They're visiting this weekend and it's been so fun to hang out with them. And then the fun grew exponentially when KELSEY BEACHEY came to town. :-) She's been gone for a few months and we miss her. Ok, I miss her. Whatever. She and Joe just need to hurry up and get married.
• I found out while talking to Jason that I had created an extra family for him that did not exist. I totally thought his brother Ben was his cousin, and that Jason was the only boy is a family of a few girls. Um, no. He is one of four boys in a family of six kids. He only has 2 sisters. (Do we like how I keep going back and forth between numbers and spelling them out? I don't know which is correct. Feel free to let me know.) So anyway, this led to a discussion last night clearing up who was who in our extended, Mennonite family. I'm still a little hazy on some people. Maybe if I had gone to the reunion...
• TJ has decided to let go of his dream to have 3 kids by the time he is 30. I think that's great, since it would require me to be 2 months pregnant RIGHT NOW. How about: No. So I think it was big of him to accept that he wasn't going to see that dream come to fruition. Upside: he now thinks we should let Stella get into school and then maybe look into adoption, or decide if we'd like another of our own. But leaning toward adoption. :-) I'm a happy girl. We have always talked about adopting, but when we decided we might want to just have 3, then it became more of a maybe. But at the moment I'd love to adopt. It will take a lot of prayer and feeling called to do it though. I don't want to do it just for fun and not be ready for the commitment and sacrifice it can be. I'm so blessed to have seen several people in my life go through it, and have wise counsel when I need it. But it would be pretty cool, I think.
• I'm not going to be joining a gym probably until the end of the year, so my goal is to attempt to do either the cardio, kickboxing, or yoga sets from P90X 3 times a week. I'm actually letting people know so they can hold me accountable. :-/
• This week I will be making 3 tooth fairy pillows for a friend, and I'm super excited. Don't look for me on Etsy anytime soon though. I have too many projects for my house on Pinterest to get started on anything else.
• Pinterest is probably a legitimate addiction.

The End.